Notes on Coleridge

Notes on Coleridge

Shakespeare’s Judgment Equal to his Genius

Coleridge uses a discussion of Shakespeare’s greatness as a way of getting at what is good (or great) in poetry and what a critic needs to appreciate the great (and good) in poetry.

He begins by attacking the notion that Shakespeare is a kind of artistic freak of nature, a kind of idiot savant of literature. Coleridge argues that Shakespeare is a self conscious artist and that he constructed his plays the way he did not because he did not know any better, but because he knew exactly what he was doing. This is what Coleridge means when, on page 495, he says, “…the judgment of Shakespeare is commensurate with his genius, nay that his genius reveals itself in his judgment in its most exalted form.”

Coleridge goes on to note that people cannot accept this fact about Shakespeare because they are determined to judge him by their own ideas of what a play should be and not be. Take, for example, the classical notion that a play ought to happen in the course of a day when many Shakespeare’s plays happen over the course of months. Coleridge would say that this one-day restriction may have resulted in some Greek or French masterpieces. However, that fact does not mean that a tragedy must only take place over the course of a day and to say it does reveals a misunderstanding of the art of the drama. This is what he is getting at when he says on page 495 that “whole nations, are sometimes so enslaved to the habits of their education and immediate circumstances, as not to judge disinterestedly even on those subjects, the very pleasure arising from which consists in disinterestedness, namely on the subjects of taste and polite literature.” In other words, local prejudices interfere with the appreciation of art that does not respond to those prejudices.

Note, the use of the word, “disinterestedness.” You may recall that Matthew Arnold also praises “disinterest” in the critic, the ability to objectively judge the greatness (or lack of the same) of a work of art. Coleridge asks that a critic needs to be able to step outside of their own culture and circumstances and focus on the universals that are “common to all men” (top of page 496) and take care to see how these universals work themselves out in various local traditions. This introduces the notion of unity in multiplicity, the idea that though there are many different things, there is one thing (or series of things) uniting them. There may be many different plays from different traditions (Greek, Roman, English, French, Russian, Chinese), but what makes any one play great will be the way it responds to certain universal human interests. For example, Njal’s Saga is an Icelandic epic written deep in the middle ages. The Orestia was written centuries before the birth of Christ in Greece. Both works are recognized as being masterpieces of their respective traditions and of world literature besides. Why? Because, Coleridge might say, both works consummately address the universal question of justice: what it is, how it is established, and how maintained.

Unity in multiplicity means that each work solves its unifying problem in its own way—just as oak seed and a palm seed will both solve the problem of how to become an oak or palm tree respectively—they will do so in very different ways. But they will be the same in this: that whatever method they use will be appropriate to their circumstances, time, and place. Different forms of art, Coleridge says, do the same thing. They solve the same problems, but each in their own way.

On the other hand, Coleridge says, that does not mean there are no rules. There are rules. (Top of 496, left column). “As it must not, so genius cannot, be lawless: for it is even this that constitutes it genius—the power of acting creatively under the laws of its own origination.” Given a limited amount of time, given the Globe theater, given the acting company that you have, given the money you have to produce plays, given the story you want to tell, given that you will write it in iambic pentameter, given that it must be finished by a certain date, given that certain topics are off limits, that certain people cannot be offended, given all that—Shakespeare is free to do as he wishes.

Like Aristotle, Coleridge envisions a play or poem, as a kind of organism in which all parts contribute to the good of the whole. (page 496) “…but a living body is of necessity an organized one; and what is organization but the connection of parts in and for the whole, so that each part is at once end and means?” Organic works develop naturally. Mechanical works are those whose form is predetermined, (page 496, left column) “not necessarily arising out of the properties of the material; as when to a mass of wet clay we give whatever shape we wish it to retain when hardened. The organic form, on the other hand, is innate; it shapes as it develops, itself from within and fullness of its development is one and the same with perfection of its outward form.”

Soap operas, for example, are mechanical in that their form is largely predetermined by outside interests. Certain kinds of romance novels are also highly determined.

Each organic work proceeds according to its own logic. War and Peace will not work exactly like The DaVinci Code. The first speech in a play only makes sense in terms of the last speech in the play and vice versa. Everything that happens in the play is serving one end: keeping the audience in their seat or, in the case of a poem or novel, keeping the reader reading. This enthrallment is done by offering: stories, suspense, spectacle (special effects), beauty, comedy, etc. But each play or novel or movie will do this in its own way.

The good critic is one who understands, and can explain, a work’s internal logic.

On the Principles of Genial Criticism

The Agreeable:

1.  Something that is naturally agreeable to humans.

1.1.  Coleridge uses the example of the color “green.”

1.2.  Whether this is in fact naturally agreeable to all humans all the time in all places is another matter.

2.  Something that has become agreeable to us through force of habit.

2.1.  Coleridge uses the example of tobacco.

The Beautiful

1.  “…that in which the many, still seen as many, becomes one.”

1.1.  Coleridge gives the example of frost (many distinct particles) suddenly forming a picture before our eyes.

1.2.  Coleridge notes that once we see the many becoming one we may overcome “terror or aversion” and find beauty where once we saw ugliness.

1.2.1.  He gives the example of insects. After studying insects scientifically, people may come to see their beauty.

2.  He calls this phenomenon, “multeity in unity.”

2.1.  He points out an old dirty wheel in a coachmaker’s yard.

2.1.1.  He says that if you consider the wheel abstractly (ignoring the dirt, tar, etc), you would see the beauty in its spokes, radiating from the center to the rim, “as forming one whole and each part in some harmonious relation to each.” Then, he says, if you imagine the wheel of the chariot of the sun, you will have a similar experience of beauty—without the need, however, to abstract. His point is, that what makes the wheel beautiful is not that it belongs to the chariot of the sun, but that it harmoniously expresses wheelness, which is beautiful.

2.1.2.  This is a kind of Platonism.

2.1.2.1.  A beautiful underlying unifying form (wheelness) orders the many (the details) in such a way that they become beautiful.

2.1.2.2.  He then gives two examples from paintings where the figures in the painting are arranged in a circle. The fact that the figures are arranged in a circle may not be obvious at first glance, says Coleridge, because so much is going on in the painting, but it is the circular grouping that gives the painting its beauty because the circle gives an order to the painting.

2.2.  Next at the top of page 499 he implies that the search for these ordering principles (things that stand outside of transitory human tastes and fads) is one of the jobs of the critic. This idea becomes an important idea for later formalist criticism, which searches for various deep structures that give order to works. These could be myths or formal devices (like circles).

3.  Second Principle

3.1.  (page 500) “Something there must be to realize the form, something in and by which the forma informans reveals itself.

3.1.1.  This “something” needs to be formative (give shape)

3.1.2.  But, it shouldn’t call too much attention to itself.

3.1.2.1.  He gives the example of a pure crystal, an opaque crystal, the air.

3.1.2.2.  A pure crystal contains the light and gives shape to it

3.1.2.3.  An opaque one disfigures it

3.1.2.4.  The air does nothing to it—doesn’t give it shape.

4.  Third Principle

4.1.  Beauty = the reduction of the many to one

4.2.  (bottom of page 500) “The sense of beauty subsists in simultaneous intuition of the relation of parts, each to each, and of all to the whole: exciting an immediate and absolute complacency, without intervenence, therefore, of any interest, sensual or intellectual.”

4.2.1.  beauty is a simultaneous understanding of how the parts of something fit each to each and as a whole.

4.2.1.1.  This understanding produces “pleasure” (complacency)

4.2.1.2.  This pleasure is disinterested (no intellectual or sensual agenda)

4.2.1.2.1.  No desire to dominate this beautiful thing, use it for our own ends, etc.

4.3.  The beautiful is different from the good because the good conforms to the “laws of reason and the nature of the will.”

4.3.1.  good things and good actions are reasonable (for example: do unto others as you would have them do unto you) and because they are reasonable we do them.

4.3.2.  whereas the beautiful “arises from the perceived harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with the inborn and constitutive rules of the judgment and the imagination: and it is always intuitive.”

4.3.2.1.  beauty is an artistically formal category, not a moral one.

4.3.2.1.1.  a beautiful statue does not have to conform to reason or, perhaps, to morality?

4.3.2.1.1.1.  Coleridge might object to this last part—saying an immoral work might not be able to be a harmonious one. Can you have a beautiful painting of a man or child being tortured? Or is there something innately “ugly” about such a painting? It’s an interesting question because much of modern art deals with extremities of one sort or another.

4.3.2.1.2.  the beautiful has to conform to the “inborn and constitutive rules of the judgment and imagination”

4.3.2.1.3.  For example, abstract paintings may be beautiful, but have nothing to do with morality or goodness or reason

4.3.2.1.4.  This idea is hugely important for ideas about modern art.

5.  Biographia Literaria

5.1.  Chapter 13

5.1.1.  Primary Imagination

5.1.1.1.  Consciousness

5.1.2.  Secondary Imagination

5.1.2.1.  Creative consciousness

5.1.2.1.1.  It seeks unity in multiplicity: by dissolving boundaries, diffusing ideas, making connections, etc. “Tintern Abbey,” for example.

5.1.3.  Fancy

5.1.3.1.  Does not seek to understand or comprehend connections (unity) between things, but is content with playful combination of people, events, things.

5.1.3.1.1.  A horse with the head of a dolphin, for example.

5.1.3.1.1.1.  This combination does not tell us anything new about horses or dolphins.

5.1.3.1.2.  “And here were forests as ancient as the hills / enfolding sunny spots of greenery.” (From Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn)

5.1.3.1.2.1.  This gives me the impression of dark, impossibly ancient forests, even menacing, and in their midst sunny, peaceful areas.

5.2.  Chapter 14 (page 505) Discussion of Lyrical Ballads.

5.2.1.  The idea was to write two kinds of poems

5.2.1.1.  Coleridge was to write poems that presented the supernatural presented as natural

5.2.1.1.1.  (top right hand column of 505) “…so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief, which constitutes poetic faith.”

5.2.1.1.1.1.  The willing suspension of disbelief is one of the most famous descriptions of what happens when people approach an art work, i.e. that we temporarily accept as real what we know is not real, a play, a movie, a poem.

5.2.1.1.1.1.1.  How, and why, we make this “suspension of disbelief” is much discussed.

5.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.  For example, why do we watch, and enjoy, the Lord of the Rings or The Wizard of Oz or Death of a Salesman or Oklahoma! or any dramatic work? What is it that allows an audience or a reader to succumb to a work of art?

5.2.1.1.1.1.1.2.  On the other hand, what causes failure in disbelief? What causes us to turn away from a work of art?

5.2.1.2.  Wordsworth was to write poetry that presented the ordinary as extraordinary

5.2.1.2.1.  “…to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural by awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us.”

5.2.1.2.1.1.  This is an idea about poetry that approaches Walter Pater’s notion, i.e. waking people up to the beauty around them.